1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatus, and more particularly, to an LCD panel and manufacturing method thereof capable of reducing the number of data lines and minimizing a reduction in an aperture ratio caused by storage lines.
2. Description of the Related Art
An LCD apparatus displays an image by using electro-optical properties of liquid crystals disposed between electrodes of an LCD panel. The LCD apparatus includes the LCD panel for displaying an image through a pixel matrix and a driving circuit for driving the LCD panel. The LCD apparatus further includes a backlight unit for supplying light from the rear of the LCD panel because the LCD panel is a non-emitting device. The LCD apparatus is widely used in display devices ranging from small-sized display devices such as mobile communication terminals, notebook computers and LCD TVs to large-sized display devices.
The LCD panel in which pixels each consisting of red, green and blue subpixels are arrayed in a matrix form displays an image by adjusting the transmittance of light irradiated from the backlight unit while the respective subpixels vary the arrangement of the liquid crystals according to a data signal. The subpixels drive the liquid crystals by charging a difference voltage between a data signal supplied to a pixel electrode through a thin film transistor (“TFT”) of a switching element and a common voltage supplied to a common electrode. A plurality of gate integrated circuits (“ICs”) for driving gate lines connected to TFTs and a plurality of data ICs for driving data lines are connected to the LCD panel. The data ICs have a more complicated circuit structure than that of the gate ICs because the data ICs should convert digital video data into an analog data signal.
In order to lower the cost, the LCD panel has been developed to reduce the number of data lines while maintaining resolution. To reduce the number of data lines, a method of changing an arrangement structure of the subpixels is used. In this case, an aperture ratio should be ensured so as not to degrade luminance and picture quality.